Best Things to Do on Singer Island, Florida

Singer Island's recreation is almost entirely aquatic, and one item on the list is genuinely world-class rather than merely good. For a barrier island a few miles long, the concentration is remarkable.

Dive or snorkel the Blue Heron Bridge

This is the headline, and it isn't local exaggeration: the shore dive under the bridge at Phil Foster Park is regularly named among the best in the world.

What makes it exceptional is the marine life density in very shallow, very accessible water. Seahorses, octopus, batfish, frogfish, rays, juvenile everything — the sort of creatures divers normally travel a long way and go deep for, in about fifteen feet of water you can walk into from a beach.

The critical detail is timing. The site is only worth doing around high slack tide, when the incoming water is clear and the current has stopped. Outside that window visibility collapses and the current is genuinely dangerous. Check the tide tables, arrive early, and plan your dive around the water rather than your schedule.

There's a snorkel trail as well, so you don't need certification to see a good deal of it. If you do one thing after moving here, make it this.

The beaches

Wide Atlantic beach runs most of the island's length, and it's better than the tower skyline would lead you to expect.

Public access is concentrated at a municipal beach and at the state park, with a good deal of the remaining frontage private to buildings. Residents of oceanfront condos generally have direct access, which is one of the practical advantages of living here.

The sand is broad, the water is clear on calm days, and outside season the beach is genuinely quiet on weekday mornings.

John D. MacArthur Beach State Park

The north end's natural anchor and one of the better state parks on this coast.

A long boardwalk crosses the estuary to the beach — worth doing slowly rather than treating as a corridor, since the shallow water beneath holds rays, fish and wading birds. On the ocean side, rock outcrops offer genuinely good snorkelling when conditions allow. There's a nature center, kayak access to the lagoon, and a beach that stays uncrowded because parking is finite.

It's also an active sea turtle nesting site, and the park runs turtle walks in season.

Peanut Island

A short boat ride from the south end, and one of the more unusual destinations in the county.

The island is man-made — built from material dredged when the inlet was cut — and it now holds a calm snorkelling lagoon, beaches, a campground, and a Cold War-era bunker built as a presidential shelter, which can be toured.

Getting there means a boat or the shuttle service that runs from the mainland. It's a genuine day out and it's the thing visitors most consistently enjoy.

Boating and fishing

The Lake Worth Inlet at the island's southern tip is one of the best inlets on this coast — deep, well-maintained and used by commercial shipping, which means it's kept navigable.

For anglers, that translates into fast access to the Gulf Stream, which runs close inshore here. Offshore fishing is genuinely good and the running time is short.

Options without your own boat: charters out of the marina at the south end, drift fishing trips, and dive boats running to the offshore reefs.

The Sailfish Marina

At the south end in Palm Beach Shores, and an institution rather than merely a marina.

There's a charter fleet, a dock you can walk, and a long-running ritual of feeding the fish that gather beneath it — free, oddly compelling, and best at sunset. It's the closest thing the island has to a gathering place, and it's covered further in our guide to eating and drinking here.

Paddling

The lagoon at the state park is the standout: sheltered, shallow, and full of wildlife, with manatees regularly present in the cooler months.

The Intracoastal side of the island offers more open paddling, best early before boat traffic builds.

Off the island

Fifteen minutes gets you a great deal:

• West Palm Beach for the downtown, the arts complex and the airport.
• Palm Beach for Worth Avenue and the historic estates.
• Palm Beach Gardens for the main retail concentration.
• Riviera Beach's marina district on the mainland side, which has seen substantial public investment and hosts events and waterfront dining.

Walking the island

Underrated, and the simplest thing on this list.

The beach runs most of the island's length and is walkable end to end at low tide, which takes a couple of hours each way and passes almost every kind of frontage here — towers, the state park's undeveloped stretch, and the low-rise southern town.

It's the fastest way to understand the island's geography, and residents who do it once early tend to make better decisions about where they want to be.

Seasonal timing

Winter into spring brings the best air temperatures and the biggest crowds, with more wind limiting offshore and dive days.

Summer is hot and stormy by afternoon but generally offers the calmest water and the best underwater visibility of the year. Mornings are the window.

Turtle nesting season runs roughly March through October, which brings lighting restrictions for beachfront property and an obligation to leave nests alone.

Hurricane season runs June through November and matters more on a barrier island than almost anywhere else.

Watching the port traffic

An unusual thing to have on your doorstep, and genuinely worth an evening.

The inlet at the southern end serves a working commercial port, so alongside the sport fishing boats and sailboats you get cargo ships, fuel barges and the occasional cruise vessel moving through a channel narrow enough to see the crew on deck.

The scale is startling up close, and the contrast — a container ship passing a paddleboarder — is the sort of thing you only get where a working waterway runs through a residential island. Free, frequent, and better than it sounds.

Where to start

Dive or snorkel the bridge on a high slack tide, then spend a morning at the state park, then get out to Peanut Island.

Those three are what this island is genuinely for. Once you've done them, the quieter local finds are where it starts to feel like home.